Thoughts on the giant Greta Thunberg mural in San Francisco

The first thing to note, it seems to me, is how the joylessness of her facial expression, the sense that the viewer is being admonished by his / her / its betters, seems to be deliberate:

Located in downtown San Francisco near Union Square (420 Mason St., for all you locals), the mural features Thunberg from the chest up — gazing straight into our souls, lips pursed.

Consider the self-congratulation involved in being an ostensible grown adult and being willing to take moral instruction from a sixteen-year-old girl on a matter of such sprawling scientific inquiry as to still be devoid of anything much in the way of conclusions. It's often said that climate alarmism has the trappings of a religion, and they're on display here. The adherent places himself / herself / itself in the "more of her, less of me" position that is core to the monotheistic faiths. The adherent has emptied himself / herself / itself, the ultimate act of self-denial for which the religion's deity, Gaia in the case of climate alarmism, is well-pleased. Radiance, even transfiguration, born of humility.

Then there is the lingering question of how the hell young Greta is getting any schoolwork done. She alluded to this in her UN speech. Is she still not attending classes anywhere? Are her radical sponsors seeing that she has a tutor? Perhaps it's a matter of not being able to find a suitably climate-friendly ride back to Sweden.

It's worth once again noting that she is an object of abuse. Her autism set in when she was not yet ten, the product of her parents filling her head with visions of apocalyptic doom.

The juxtaposition between the pristine vision embraced by  Greta and the alarmists generally with the needle-strewn, human-waste-smeared reality on the streets of the city by the bay must be noted as well. Real human souls are decaying while a supposed urgency so collective as to be hopelessly abstract consumes the passerby's attention in the form of this inescapable visage. Never mind the zonked-out junkie at your feet; there's a carbon reduction for us all to be about.

The fact that this mural has gone up in San Francisco spurs one to a bit of historical reflection. The "summer of love" is now shrouded enough in the mists of antiquity that it conjures for those born after its occurrence with vague images of paisley print, patchouli and Golden Gate Park love-ins. But while it was occurring, in that fabled year, 1967, the Free Clinic was already a necessity due to the health problems attendant to bad street dope of various types.

And San Francisco's bona fides as a countercultural capital go back more than a decade before that, to   October 7, 1955, when Allen Ginsberg read his obscene and hysterical poem Howl  to a crowd at City Lights Bookstore that was establishing the prototype for self-congratulation with its smug self-satisfaction that those square book-banners couldn't stop them from hearing Ginsberg's shrieks of admission to the very kind of behavior that now has thousands living in squalor on California sidewalks.

Behold, all you beatniks, hippies and climate alarmists, the fruits of your vision. It's one so noble that the ruination of actual human beings is merely a distasteful trifle to be winced at on the way to its realization.

Well-played, San Fran.